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“You could marry me.”
Mirabella’s mouth dropped open. She stared at Zane in absolute stunned silence. And then she shook her head, certain she had misheard him.
“I am really getting delusional,” she half laughed. “For a second, I thought I heard you say I could marry you.”
Zane moved in a little closer. Now that he’d said it out loud, it just seemed like it was the right solution. He didn’t know why it had taken him this long to come up with it.
“You did. I did. You can.”
She could only continue to stare at him in utter disbelief. “You’re serious,” she cried.
He didn’t see the problem. Why was she having so much trouble accepting this? Had he been wrong about the attraction he thought was between them? “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well, for one thing,” she began to enumerate, “it’s insane. For another, you don’t love me.”
Too late, Mirabella realized she hadn’t phrased that properly. What she should have said was that they didn’t love each other. But she had isolated it to just him who didn’t love in this case. Had he picked up on the fact that she’d slipped, inadvertently letting him know how she felt about him?
* * *
We hope you enjoy this dramatic series:
The Coltons of Texas: Finding love and buried family secrets in the Lone Star State…
The Pregnant Colton Bride
Marie Ferrarella
USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two-hundred-and-fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.
To Daddy,
Who introduced me to
All those Western series on TV And
Sparked my love of the
Old West.
I miss you.
Contents
He refused to believe it was true.
Eldridge Colton, the man who had adopted him, the only man he had ever really known as a father, had been kidnapped a month ago, and everyone now believed that the wealthy head of Colton Incorporated was dead.
But Zane Colton didn’t. He refused to.
This, despite the fact that there’d been no ransom note, no mysterious caller, his or her voice effectively disguised thanks to modern technology to sound like some criminal in the witness protection program testifying in closed court. No one had even attempted to bargain, demanding a king’s ransom in exchange for the wealthy, well-known Texas citizen’s safe return.
Zane held fast to the fact that up until now there had been no body found. And even though there were a dozen explanations for that, until a body was discovered, he was going to continue believing that his stepfather was still alive.
Not just believing it, but actively doing something to find out what had happened to the man and where Eldridge had been all this time since the morning that Moira, the family housekeeper of long standing, had been dispatched to the patriarch’s room because his wife, Whitney, had wanted him by her side as she attended another society breakfast.
Zane could still hear Moira’s scream ringing in his ears. Moreover, he could hear his mother as she’d first railed indignantly at the housekeeper for making a scene, then dramatically